Imagine a future Olympic games. One of Britain's best athletes is victorious. The three athletes on the podium turn to face their respective flags. It should be an uplifting moment of personal and patriotic pride. But then the band strikes up the victor's national anthem, a miserable dirge with embarrassing words that nobody seems to know (at least after the first verse). It is a sad anti-climax.
If any part of the "dignified" aspects of the British state is ripe for change it is the national anthem. According to the Penguin Book of Hymns, God Save the Queen originated as an anthem dedicated to Louis XIV of France in the late 17th century. It was translated into English but only gained currency when used as a Hanoverian retort to Scottish Jacobite rebels in 1745.
Its words are simple to the point of childishness and include a second verse about scattering our enemies, paying particular attention to their "knavish tricks." This just sounds silly; it would be more appropriate for us to urge the Queen to "Hold our exchange rate steady" or "Reform the C-A-P."
Why can't we have a new national anthem as a millennium present? There exists a beautiful song, whose words and music were written by two British men of different backgrounds: one, the third generation of an immigrant family; the other a career diplomat. It is described by the composer's daughter as "back-stiffening" and by the Penguin Book of Hymns as "the hymn to which film directors turn when they want to evoke a vanished England." It is I vow to thee, my country.
But the hymn is not just English. It is instantly recognisably by almost anyone who has attended a British school or church, and it was the favourite hymn of the late Princess Diana. The music was written by Gustav Holst, whose family traced its roots to several European countries. The words were written by the diplomat Cecil Spring-Rice. He played a big part in drawing the US into the first world war and his experience of the war led him to rewrite the original poem to reflect a yearning for peace.
Some people will object to the hymn as a national anthem on the grounds that it is overtly Christian. But it is much less aggressively Christian than the current anthem. Indeed, God Save the Queen is a symbol of oppression for many people; it emerged as a national anthem around the time Scotland was being subsumed into an English-dominated United Kingdom. But the problem with God save the Queen is not so much its past but its present. It appeals to almost no one, as can be heard in the general apathy which greets the opening chords of the anthem at any public event. What should be a rousing moment that binds people together is diminished by the music itself.
I vow to thee, my country appeals to a higher standard of conduct rather than a nationalist hurrah. The ideals referred to in the poem-loyalty, sacrifice and faith-are common to all the world religions. It is an anthem most suited to a diverse modern Britain.
